Your next 2020 Democratic presidential primary thread: Now we're serious

bloomberg very obviously doesn't give a shit about the democratic party or its candidates

plus, if he really wants to support state/local candidates, he probably could dig up another $10M from the couch cushions

I am not supporting Bloomberg for the nomination, but come on, dude literally did exactly that less than a year ago in Virginia. OK he only spent $2.5m but that was all it took to flip the statehouse, spelling a likely end to gerrymandering there, expanded voting rights, etc.

I don't like predicting but hell here's a prediction. Suppose it's Elizabeth Warren against Trump. A lot of people here seem to think Bloomberg would be indifferent in such a contest. I think Bloomberg would spend a buttload of money to help Warren win.

if what he really in his heart of hearts wants to do is support another, actually viable candidate I can think of some more useful things to be doing than running for president

xp i was just pointing out that paying for his super bowl ad and supporting other candidates isn't mutually exclusive

And I'm just pointing out that good evidence they're not mutually exclusive is that Bloomberg is already doing it! I feel like I keep seeing this "WHY ISN'T BLOOMBERG PUTTING HIS MONEY INTO DOWNBALLOT RACES THAT ARE CRITICAL FOR DEMS" and... he is! And I would be shocked if he doesn't continue to do so in 2020!

PS I absolutely did not know this but apparently Tom Steyer has given more money to liberal candidates than anybody. 50% more than Bloomberg, 3x as much as Soros.

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/07/tom-steyer-enters-2020presidential-field/

This stuff is important! It doesn't mean either of these guys should be President, it just means it's not right to say they're egomaniacs who don't care about liberal causes, only themselves.

well they're still probably egomaniacs but so am I

NEW #IOWA POLL 🚨🚨🚨

Sanders: 20% (+5)
Warren: 17% (+1)
Buttigieg: 16% (-9)
Biden: 15% (-)
Klobuchar: 6% (-)
Yang: 5% (+2)
Booker: 3% (-)
Steyer: 2% (-1)
Gabbard: 2% (-1)
Bloomberg: 1% (-1)
Not sure: 11% (+6)

wait til they see that Bloomberg Super Bowl ad

Man if Warren or Bernie would just drop and and endorse the other one, they'd win in a landslide. Of course Warren is "Warpig Warren" according to my lefty friends *eyeroll*

that seems like a fallacy to me; it's not just simple addition

yes

not -trying - to be a narc but may i suggest attributing where the poll comes from when you post one?

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/iowa-poll/caucus/2020/01/10/iowa-poll-2020-bernie-sanders-lead-iowa-caucus-president-election/4426492002/

I'm sure it wouldn't be only simple addition, but I'm guessing it would still be pretty significant.

Des Moines Register is widely seen as the most accurate poll of Iowa. I was skeptic, because while I can see Sanders winning, I can't see Warren doing that well there anymore, but could be true!

Man if Warren or Bernie would just drop and and endorse the other one, they'd win in a landslide. Of course Warren is "Warpig Warren" according to my lefty friends *eyeroll*

no reason to harp on "one of them should drop out!" before a single vote is cast

If Bernie and Warren finish as the top two in Iowa, you know the media will play it as "the party has moved too far left for the rest of the nation". Yeah, those crazy far lefties of Iowa.

wait til they see that Bloomberg Super Bowl ad

― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Friday, January 10, 2020 5:18 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

this made me lol

Weird how this is framed as "Bernie or Warren" - he's clearly running ahead of her, why wouldn't you just say "if Warren would drop out and endorse..."
― Greta Van Show Feets BB (milo z), Friday, January 10, 2020 6:48 PM (fifty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I could see this if he'd consistently been doing much better than her, but she had a higher national polling average for much of the fall, and she's not behind him by much these days. They've been trading places behind Biden.

Citation needed

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/2020_democratic_presidential_nomination-6730.html

Bret Stephens: To say Sanders is unelectable is indefensible

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/436/943/93f.jpg

never get tired of hearing white guys point out that women should just endorse bernie

lol at the idea that Sanders being the nominee would make the Dems a "socialist party". how much fuckin money does this guy get paid again

in other news, Yang apparently did not make the cut for the next debate (though - sigh - Steyer did)

As NPR just pointed out, the timing of the impeachment trial is "a gift" to the non-senators in the race.

Seeing how the leading candidates have been campaigning in Iowa and NH for, oh, ten months or more, you'd think the voters there would have some clues about them already. That is, if they cared to clue themselves in at all.

This is a big story.

Former vice president Joe Biden is far and away the favored candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination among black Americans, boosted by his personal popularity, his service in the Obama administration and perceptions that he is best equipped to defeat President Trump, according to a national Washington Post-Ipsos poll.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) occupies second place in the Democratic field among African American voters, easily outdistancing the remaining candidates in the race. Sanders is leading among black voters under age 35, replicating his success with younger white voters in other national polls. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) runs third.

The survey finds meager support for former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg, who is among the leaders in polls in the predominantly white states of Iowa and New Hampshire but stands at 2 percent among Democratic black voters nationally. A lack of familiarity with him and concerns about his experience and sexual orientation appear to be contributing to his current standing. Buttigieg has said that as African Americans get to know him, he will gain more support, but the poll undercuts that assertion. He receives only 3 percent support among black voters who are familiar with him.

Worth stressing:

Many younger African Americans, however, are drawn to Sanders rather than to Biden. Terrell Askew, 33, a community organizer in Baltimore, said that in 2016, he believed Sanders was the candidate with the best policies but felt then that the Democratic Party wasn’t ready for someone like Sanders. Today, Sanders is his preferred choice.

“I prefer his track record, particularly around housing, which is a major issue,” Askew said. “And the conversations that he’s had around debt, student debt and things like that. And addressing the economic disparities between the poor and wealthy individuals in our country.”

He sees problems that weren’t addressed aggressively enough by Obama and wonders whether Biden would be more of a status quo candidate, rather than someone who would take on conditions in the country that he thinks contributed to Trump’s victory four years ago.

hasn't most of this been known for months?

Bernie campaign is going after Warren: https://www.politico.com/amp/news/2020/01/11/bernie-quietly-goes-negative-on-warren-097594?__twitter_impression=true

Bernie Sanders volunteer hits back:

Here’s what actually happened. A random user who’s only ever posted once before posted that document in the Sanders volunteer Slack group. A moderator promptly removed it and stated that it was NOT a campaign source. https://t.co/gt2xSvQNX5

— eric isaac (@ericisaac) January 12, 2020

From Politico:

Fwiw, this popular thread is not true. Attacking reporting and pushing misinformation is not just a right-wing phenomenon. I provided all the info to Bernie's camp before publishing & they didn't deny its authenticity. The doc had "Paid for by Bernie 2020"https://t.co/IAL9UXlJ8j

— Alex Thompson (@AlxThomp) January 12, 2020

"The doc had "Paid for by Bernie 2020""

Cool cool must be true.

The document also instructs to tell voters who are favorable toward Pete Buttigieg that he lacks support among African Americans and young people and to tell voters sympathetic to former Vice President Joe Biden that “he doesn’t really have any volunteers” and that “no one is really excited about him.” All of the attacks relate to the electability of Sanders' top rivals.

Sounds like this vicious piece of propaganda was, uh, just telling the truth?

Yes, this thing that absolutely didn't exist, and if it existed it was definitely just a volunteer and not anyone from the campaign, is actually very good and accurate.

Your posts are definitely not paid for by Bernie 2020.

Unlike mine.

A Bernie volunteer just called me and asked if I was voting for warren and when I said yes they asked me if my refrigerator was running and I told them it was and they said “better go catch it!” and hung up on me. I’m shaking and crying rn.

— pokey pup (@Whatapityonyou) January 13, 2020

seems like Sanders' Green New Deal doesn't have much for moving usa away from cars, which is a drag. but none of the competitors have any better plan. ugh. ban cars.

I for one am shocked that the Bernie campaign would stoop to criticizing his political rivals. What do they think this is, some kind of contest where only one campaign wins?!

ugh. ban cars.

Bernie would almost certainly want every American to be able to travel locally on trams or intercity on a big choo-choo while wearing a conductor's hat and smiling out the window, but given the current state of American infrastructure this is absolutely not a votewinner, and major steps toward it could not be achieved* in a four-year term

* without cancelling the Pentagon's entire budget and committing it towards loads of new jobs for rail construction and operation, which the fantasy Bernie in my head would do by executive order on his second day in office, u love to see it

the not a votewinner thing is real though.

I don't think this would put off the voters if it's sold properly as a structured plan.

Simon H otfm

I don't think this would put off the voters if it's sold properly as a structured plan.

I don't think it would put off a constituency if it's sold etc etc. And winning votes is more urgent than not putting off votes. Energy spent on explaining policies to voters who don't understand how the policies benefit them is energy wasted, given the attention span assigned to voters by the US media. "LOCK HER UP" and "BUILD THE WALL" connected, and "MEDICARE 4 ALL" gets its point across in nearly as compact a delivery.

Even "the top 1% of the top 1%" sounds like homework to the lumpenvoter: Warren is folksying it pretty well with "the first $50 million is yours to keep, then we take 2c out of every dollar on top of that, and we turn it into education and housing and etc etc" but it still gets turned into a "YOU'RE RAISING TAXES" cudgel.

Explaining how America's insane dependence on cars & guzzoline & construction of freeways & devaluing of trains is the result of deliberate anti-worker conspiracies by oligarchs a century ago, and that commuting & downtowns & neighbourhoods & parks are all improved by public transport, is more effectively done when you have a few years to message, rather than three seconds.

Booker's out. Formal announcement coming later today. The only remaining question is how long he continues "dating" Rosario Dawson.

Eric Andre has been canvassing for Bernie, so this is bound to put an extra spring in his step.

nyt is announcing their endorsement on 1/19, and they've started publishing the transcripts of long interviews between the candidates and the editorial board, something they've never published before (to my knowledge). those interviews are being published this week, starting with sanders and steyer today.

for those with a subscription: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/13/opinion/election-nytimes-the-choice.html

I'd expect them to go w/ Warren

I would love to see their reasoning if they pick Biden.

Eric Andre has been canvassing for Bernie, so this is bound to put an extra spring in his step.

― bold caucasian eroticism (Simon H.), Monday, January 13, 2020 11:10 AM (twenty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

happy to see the endorsement, sad to see eric andre split with his good friend vulture capitalist hannibal buress